The Beginning is Near

DIRECTIONS:
7:00 - The main event is in the Hunter College Assembly Hall, in the North Building entrance on 69th Street between Lexington Avenue & Park Avenue.
5:30 - The reception takes place in the North Dining Hall located in the West Building of Hunter College on the 3rd floor. The West Building is on the south west corner of 68th and Lexington. You go in and take the escalator up to the 3rd floor where the North Dining Room is located. There will be volunteers and signs up to help.
10:00 -12:00pm - The afterparty takes place at Colors Restaurant, 417 Lafayette Street--a simple subway ride downtown on the 6 train to Astor Place .

With almost four decades of experience to draw on, the Brecht Forum is entering 2012 with high hopes and a renewed spirit. As one prescient sign at Occupied Wall Street read, "The Beginning is Near."

Following years of capitalist triumphalism and imperial overreach, cynical horizons were challenged by 2011's popular uprisings. Starting with labor's powerful fight-back in Wisconsin and the earth-shaking Arab Spring, the spirit quickly spread to Greece and Spain, where a new generation of "indignados" seized city centers for participatory responses to capitalist austerity. Then New York City entered the international discussion with the rise of the Occupy Wall St and a newly combative 99%.

To put the generational shift in perspective, Pew Research released a poll at the end of the year in which a majority of people under 30 have a "positive view of socialism"--unprecedented figures that that trend up among people of color and the poor. Considering how negatively the term has been defined in American politics, these numbers show the scope of how real the current openings are.

These are the times the Brecht Forum was made for. The need for political education, non-sectarian meeting space, media production facilities and a movement crossroads have never been more important.

Please join friends, teachers, students, rabble-rousers and trouble makers for an historic evening with Oscar-winning filmmaker Michael Moore and distinguished professor and social critic Dr. Cornel West. as they discuss the new political situation in the US and internationally and we raise some much needed funds for your favorite New York City movement center, the Brecht Forum. The conversation will be moderated by noted author and playwright, Esther Armah.

Michael Moore is an acclaimed filmmaker, best selling author and social activist. He is known for his expository documentaries such as Fahrenheit 9/11, Bowling for Columbine, Sicko and his most recent Capitalism: A Love Story. Moore is an active participant in the Occupy Movement across the country by bringing publicity to an otherwise non-covered story. Moore has been a longstanding figure on the Left and is continuing to uphold his “trouble maker” status.

Cornel West is a prominent and provocative democratic intellectual.  He has taught at Union Theological Seminary, Yale, Harvard and the University of Paris. West is currently professor at Princeton University.  He has written 19 books and edited 13 books.  He is best known for his commentary on race titled Race Matters.  He also has appeared in over 25 documentaries and films including Examined Life, Call & Response, Sidewalk and Stand.

Esther Armah is a radio & tv host, playwright and award-winning international journalist. In New York, she hosts Wake Up Call, WBAI 99.5FM’s morning show and is a regular commentator and guest host on GRITtv with Laura Flanders and MNN’s Ancestor House with Camille Yarbrough.  Esther has written extensively on African Diaspora issues for The Guardian in London, Essence magazine in the US and West Africa magazine in Africa and Europe. The themes of her written work are reflected in the issues portrayed in Armah’s four New York stage plays,  Can I Be Me? Forgive Me? Entitled! and SAVIOUR? Esther is the creator and moderator of ‘Afrolicious: an Emotional Justice Arts and Conversation’ series in New York. A global citizen, she now lives in Brooklyn, New York.